The shortlist for the International Booker Prize was announced in London today and features several titles from small publishers. The shortlisted books are:
- Hurricane Season by Mexican author Fernanda Melchor, translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes (Fitzcarraldo)
- The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated from Spanish by Iona Macintyre and Fiona Mackintosh (Charco)
- The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar, translated from Farsi by an anonymous translator (Europa)
- The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchinson (Faber & Faber)
- The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder (Harvill Secker)
- Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann, translated from German by Ross Benjamin (Quercus).
"Each of our shortlisted books restlessly reinvents received narratives, from foundational myths to family folklore, plunging us into discomforting and elating encounters with selves in a state of transition," said Ted Hodgkinson, chair of the judges, during the announcement, which took place online.
The International Booker Prize is awarded every year for a single work of fiction that is translated into English and published in the U.K. or Ireland. The winning author and translator split £50,000 and the shortlisted authors and translators will each receive £1,000. The winners will be announced on May 19.
